Top Law Schools

So my summer job did not produce anything I can use as a writing sample. Should I continue to use the memo I wrote for for fall Legal Writing, or an appellate brief from spring? About the same grade on both, of course the appellate brief is more pages. Does anyone know of a preference from employers? (I know I'm belatedly thinking about this, the writing sample completely slipped my mind in the whole transfer debacle).

I am using a motion for summer judgment from my spring writing class, it is only about 5 pages. I would your brief from the spring and edit it down to 5-10 pages.

Hm, while my brief is probably written better than the memo (due to it being 2nd semester) it is 20 pages long. What sections do you recommend leaving out? The argument alone is ~12 and the facts about 5. Can I omit the entire fact section?

samiseaborn wrote:Hm, while my brief is probably written better than the memo (due to it being 2nd semester) it is 20 pages long. What sections do you recommend leaving out? The argument alone is ~12 and the facts about 5. Can I omit the entire fact section?

Why the heck is it 20 pages long? Yikes.

Don't omit the fact section. You want to have a complete document for them to look at. Without the facts, they will not be able to get their bearings about what you are talking about. That said, I cannot imagine you need 5 pages for a facts section. There are probably a lot of facts in there that you simply do not need for your argument. Find them and eliminate them.

Also go through and cut out all the unnecessary fluff. It will make the piece better, and will help make it a more manageable length. After that is done, if you still need to cut pages and cannot do it without begining to make your argument nonsensical, cut sections of your argument whole-scale. Just make a note indicating that the section was there in the past. It is much better to half a few very well written sections than only a fraction of a lot of sections.

If you can get the total length down to around 5 pages, that would be ideal. I would under no circumstances make it longer than ten pages.

EDIT: And are you sure nothing you wrote over the summer will work as a writing sample? It is almost sure to be better than your LARW stuff, and firms tend to like seeing what you actually produce while you are working.

Bosque wrote:

samiseaborn wrote:Hm, while my brief is probably written better than the memo (due to it being 2nd semester) it is 20 pages long. What sections do you recommend leaving out? The argument alone is ~12 and the facts about 5. Can I omit the entire fact section?

Why the heck is it 20 pages long? Yikes.

Don't omit the fact section. You want to have a complete document for them to look at. Without the facts, they will not be able to get their bearings about what you are talking about. That said, I cannot imagine you need 5 pages for a facts section. There are probably a lot of facts in there that you simply do not need for your argument. Find them and eliminate them.

Also go through and cut out all the unnecessary fluff. It will make the piece better, and will help make it a more manageable length. After that is done, if you still need to cut pages and cannot do it without begining to make your argument nonsensical, cut sections of your argument whole-scale. Just make a note indicating that the section was there in the past. It is much better to half a few very well written sections than only a fraction of a lot of sections.

If you can get the total length down to around 5 pages, that would be ideal. I would under no circumstances make it longer than ten pages.

EDIT: And are you sure nothing you wrote over the summer will work as a writing sample? It is almost sure to be better than your LARW stuff, and firms tend to like seeing what you actually produce while you are working.

Um, ~ 20 pages would be appropriate for an appellate brief - but you can probably omit almost all the statement of facts and just provide a 1 paragraph summary; plus, cut the summary of argument, statement of case, etc.

EDIT: 5-10 pages is appropriate for a writing sample, just saying that 20 isn't long for an appellate brief

I did get it down to around 10, and eliminated most of the sections you suggested. I just wrote it so long ago now that I couldn't remember which paragraphs/sections were the important ones! Thanks for the help!